Cats, Rats, And Irony
by plazmah
Summary: House finds a stray cat on his porch and takes it in, intent on using Steve McQueen to prove that cats and rats can indeed be friends.


Title: Cats, Rats, and Irony  
Author: smithar  
Rating: G  
Fandom: House MD  
Pairing(s): Implied House/Cuddy, House/Stacey, House/Wilson, and House/Cameron. But mostly House/Cameron.  
Summary: House finds a stray cat on his porch and takes it in, intent on using Steve McQueen to prove that cats and rats can indeed be friends.  
Notes: Humour fic! Please don't take this seriously. Inspired by wiccagirl24. Unbetaed.

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_You can't go against nature._ That's what House's last clinic patient had told him after he had tried to convince her that it was indeed possible for her to break her drinking habit. Typical, for a person to blame genetics instead of taking control of their own life. Genetics could be overcome if one tried hard enough. Of course, Wilson had thought otherwise when he mentioned it, resulting in a challenge of sorts. Now, if only House could figure out the best way to pull this off...

Getting off his motorcycle and heading to the door, House noticed a cat sitting on his landing, no collar but looking quite healthy. As he walked over to the landing the cat stood up and stretched, vivid green eyes and glossy brown fur, looking at House expectantly.

_Probably hungry and looking for scraps,_ he thought. The cat kept on staring.

House crouched down. "How manipulative of you, to stare at me with those pretty eyes and show off your pretty fur in order to score some chow." He slowly moved his hand to pet the cat, who accepted his touch a little warily.

A light suddenly went off in House's head and he scooped the surprised cat under his arm. "C'mon, Cuddy. I've got some milk and salami in the fridge."

---

It was a perfect plan: show Wilson that cats and rats could be the best of friends, that it was possible to overcome centuries of hardwired instincts. To be truthful, House wasn't too concerned with proving Wilson wrong. It was just the principle of the thing.

Of course, perfect plans were never really perfect.

House noted the irony of naming the attractive stray cat Cuddy. With her belly finally full, the beast had immediately leapt from House's arms and run straight for Steve McQueen's cage, hissing and battering the cage the entire time. Steve had chittered frightfully inside, tail and whiskers twitching.

House had no choice but to take Cuddy-cat to the animal shelter in exchange for another cat. As he was walking down the stalls, one particular cat caught his eyes. With bright yellow eyes and ginger fur with white spots on her head, she was definately distinctive. But even better, the cat was affectionate as hell. The worker at the shelter had opened the cage and the ginger cat had immediately rubbed up against House's good leg, purring affectionately.

House decided to call her Stacey and took the cat home.

---

Wilson hadn't seemed too convinced with House's plan when he told him the next day. _Doomed to fail,_ is what he had said. Although the fact that House had named the cats Cuddy and Stacey respectively _had_ amused the oncologist.

He came home that night to find Stacey-cat sitting silently before Steve's cage. House felt success looming as the cat meowed happily and came running to his feet. That hope quickly sank as he looked down at Steve's cage and saw that the rat was missing.

"You trecherous cat, where's Steve?" House muttered half to himself, looking around the room. Upon further inspection of the cage, however, he realized that Steve hadn't been devoured. Instead, the rat had burrowed under the wood shavings and was hiding from sight.

Seeing that Steve was actually safe, House sat back on his couch and pondered the interaction between Steve and Stacey. When she wasn't purring gleefully in House's lap, Stacey-cat would spend her time stalking Steve, pacing the perimeter of the cage continuously, waiting for him to come out in plain sight. The poor rat hadn't touched any of his food pellets all day, trapped in a state of constant vigilance. Again, House thought he had chosen quite an ironic name for the cat.

It wasn't going to work out, and House knew he had to get another cat in order to prove his point.

---

House knew the animal shelter wouldn't let him pick out and switch cats indefinately, so he knew he had to make this choice his last one. He had it in his mind that maybe he should pick out a male cat this time around, to go with his male rat. Unfortunately, there were no male cats at the shelter at that moment. _Lucky for Chase,_ House thought with amusement.

One of the workers showed him a grey kitten who was up for adoption, sleeping with eyes half open in her cage. House wasn't too fond of kittens; in his experience they were full of energy that he didn't have, hard to care for. The last thing he needed was a little monster tearing up his curtains and peeing on his bed.

But as the worker put the tiny grey kitten in his hands, (Were cats even allowed to feel that soft and delicate?) it looked up and blinked with gorgeous blue eyes. Didn't purr, didn't meow. House decided to throw caution to the wind. He named her Cameron and took her home.

---

Cameron-cat was, to his surprise, as timid as kittens could get. But more importantly, she got on famously with Steve McQueen, probably owing to the fact that they were nearly the same size. In fact, at one point House wondered if it was a possibility that _Steve_ could hurt _Cameron_. He had sharp teeth, after all. And what with the rat's past experience with Cuddy and Stacey, he could potentially have been prone to lashing out in fear or aggression. House found himself hovering over Cameron-cat as she explored his apartment with thoughtful curiousity.

Once again, the irony of his name choices came to mind. Even though he had won, he really wished he had never accepted Wilson's challenge to begin with. The man was having way too much fun bugging House to take the _real_ Cameron home too.

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End file.
